Data centers are increasingly used by enterprises for effective collaboration and interaction and to store data and resources. A typical data center network contains myriad network elements, including servers, load-balancers, routers, switches, etc. The network connecting the network elements provides secure user access to data center services and an infrastructure for deployment, interconnection, and aggregation of shared resource as required, including applications, servers, appliances and storage. Improving operational efficiency and optimizing utilization of resources in data centers are some of the challenges facing data center managers. Data center managers want a resilient infrastructure that consistently supports diverse applications and services and protects the applications and services against disruptions. A properly planned and operating data center network provides application and data integrity and optimizes application availability and performance. For example, advanced data center network fabric built with highly resilient scalable platforms can integrate intelligent services directly into the fabric. Infrastructure enhancing services improve the reliability and security of the hosted infrastructure and applications and allow centralization of heterogeneous services that were previously only available as distributed services on end systems like storage and servers. Service appliances that deliver such centralized network services allow unified administration, improved performance and other advantages.